To which way we fly
by Mark Shepherd
Summary: If only ACE Combat was a lot sillier- This is the tale of a Super Flanker pilot.
1. Pilot, please shut up!

**A/N: NONE of these characters were based off real people or anyone's OCs! So now we can safely enjoy a story full of half witted nincompoops.**

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A single triple gray tone Su-35S Super Flanker aligns its nose refuel port with one of the refuel nozzles of an IL-76 tanker aircraft of the Russian air Force. The pilot of the Super Flanker, however, is a nonconformist, as he was polluting the silence of the radio traffic by chanting an excruciatingly irritating tone through the radio mounted on his oversized oxygen mask.

"Macaroni,"

"Macaroni,"

"Macaroni,"

"Macaroni,"

"Put the cheese to the noodles,"

"And what do you get?"

The name of the particular pilot is Major Roman Menitsky, an extremely relaxed pilot for his rank. Although originally flying the MiG-29A Fulcrums, his high personality got him the respect of many pilots quickly and he rose through the ranks rather quickly compared to the others of the same rank. As a result, he was able to fly Russia's prized air dominance fighters- The Su-35S.

"Roman?" a familiar female voice popped in his ears. It was First Lieutenant Lena Vysotsky, his female wingman and closest friend.

"Roman, shut up!"

"Roman?"

"Roman, cut it out with that song…" Lena said, getting a little irritated.

"Roman?! Oh god…"

"YOU GET MACARONI, NOW SHUT UP!" the agitated tanker pilot said, not attempting to hide his scorn.

The confused Major snapped out of his trance and looked up to see his hands on the stick and throttle, and the fact that he totally forgot that he was in the line of a refuel tanker. He gazed to his left shoulder, where he saw his wingman trailing him closely, with her wingtip ECM pod almost touching his canopy. Her cold gray eyes looked into his like a Siberian blizzard, almost making him shiver a bit in his canopy. However, he quickly shrugged it off as he pulled out a slender grayish object from his flight suit.

"Well, well, if it ain't my sweetheart, Lena…" Roman said playfully as he was busy fiddling with his camera.

"W-wait, gimme a sec to grab something-" Lena said as she unzipped her jacket and ripped off her oxygen mask. The female aviator proceeded to yank out a barf bag and proceeded to puke a precious amount of her breakfast into the bag, being openly disgusted over her friend's horrible singing skills.

Roman, however, was still playing around with his camera. As he got the camera ready, he had it pointing towards the tanker's nozzle operator, where he gave him a clear middle finger gesture while he wasn't looking his way. After clicking around with a few more buttons, he finally managed to get the camera into the record mode and started to film his daily monologue.

"Hello guys, and take a look through my new camera!" Roman said cheerfully as he moved the camera around his cockpit before aiming the lens at his wingman. "Meet Lena, the Russian Federation's sexiest combat pilot."

"Go on, do that Tom Cruise thing," Roman said as he zoomed the camera into her flawless face. "Oh… and you know how jealous those models will be once they see your face without that helmet?!"

However, he got no response from her, only hearing more incomprehensible garbled noises and vomit sounds over the earpiece.

"Right…" the Major said as he aimed his camera at the full glass cockpit. "So what do all of these thingies do again?"

Pressing one of the buttons, he toggled the IRST, where he got a clear view through what the nose mounted sensor saw, displaying a clear image of the horizon in full color detail.

"So that's the IRST..." Roman exclaimed in half amazement. "Now how do I flip these dials back to original…"

Pressing another button on the opposite multifunction display, he managed to bring up the weapons data, which showed that he had a full Combat Air Patrol payload, stocked up with R-73, R-77, R-27 and wingtip ECM pods.

"Weapons… right on schedule," Roman said as his hands punched a few buttons under the HUD.

"Waypoints marker… looks like a calculator."

"Roman, get your face off my ass, your tanks are already past full," the agitated tanker operator cursed at the clumsy pilot as he released his refuel nozzle from his refuel probe, splashing some kerosene over his canopy.

"Alright, alright, just a second," the Super Flanker pilot replied as he aimed his camera at the fuel stain. "Could someone wipe my canopy? Yes? No?"

"Hey, Roman, goodbye." the tanker pilot replied coldly.

Roman, however, did little to regard to his cold insults and tone. He simply raised the tinted visor covering face to expose it to the bright daylight, in the meantime of when he aimed the camera at the rear end of the IL-76.

"Woo yeah, did you know that your ass looks beautiful from back here?" Roman joked at the tanker.

"You little cockroach wanker," the tanker pilot cursed again as Lena trailed in front of his cockpit view. "I was piloting airplanes when you were still sucking milk out of your mommy's breasts!"

"Chill out man," Roman said coolly as he kept the camera aimed at the underbelly of the IL-76. "Don't get angry due to the fact that you never got the fighters!"

The tanker simply gave him a scoff of scorn.

"Look," Roman said as he attempted to cheer his logistical peer up. "I'm gonna show ya something that you could never do in that fat boiler of yours."

Roman pushed the stick forwards while still aiming the camera at the belly of the tanker. He quickly strapped the camera onto his combat helmet as he slammed the side throttles to full afterburners, injecting the already hot exhaust with more jet fuel, causing the thrust vectored nozzles to splay far open. His airspeed quickly accelerated to 1350 kilometres per hour as he pulled down on the stick, lightly at first before downing it all the way. He could feel the g-forces sucking the blood away from his head and the tight fitting g-suit squeezing hard on his thighs, in an attempt to force the precious blood back to his head.

Although his vision was tunnelling, he simply watched as the digital altimeter rocket up to 55,000 feet before he slammed the throttle to idle. His airspeed dropped as he performed an almost totally controlled tail slide.

"Yahoo!" Roman chanted as his plane slid downwards towards the deep blue ocean. His cockpit was now shaking heavily as a result of excessive angles of attack caused by the deep stall he induced, forcing the plane into a wild flat spin. He took out his iPod at the moment and began to play a soundtrack on the PDA, totally disregarding his loss of control at the moment.

"Whoohoo!

When I feel heavy metal

Whoohoo!

And I'm pins and I'm needles

Whoohoo!" Roman sang along.

The altimeter kept on flashing its numbers wildly on screen as his altitude plummeted to 13,000 feet, where he has already fully recovered from the spin. He now slammed the afterburners back on as he picked up more airspeed.

"Well I lie and I'm easy  
All of the time I am never sure  
Why I need you  
Pleased to meet you" Roman continued on.

By this time the altitude dropped down to 5,500 feet, and the altitude warning came on in that trademark monotone voice of its. It continued as the plane continued to dive, this time dropping below 980 feet. The cockpit began to shake violently as a result of the extreme speed and g-forces exerted onto the airframe when the half-witted pilot pulled back on the stick and levelled out the flight.

Still keeping the afterburner on, he kept a level flight just above the rooftops of the buildings in the local costal city near the shore of the Black Sea. He started a barrel roll as he continued on with the lyrics, before he finally stopped the roll and kept an inverted flight. Looking at the ground, he could see many civilians raising their fists at him out of sheer frustration the noise of his aircraft has caused them. Roman simply shrugged it off, as he wasn't done with his stunt yet.

.

Meanwhile…

.

A commander was driving in his UAZ jeep along with another soldier of his down the road to Anapa. They were just nearing a bridge crossing when the soldier asked his superior a relatively simple question.

"Nice day, isn't it General?"

"…and besides that?" the General rebutted.

However, Roman was preparing to make a low pass while the couple were engaging in their merry conversations. Lowering his aircraft down to the level of the local dock cranes, he positioned his nose for a low fly-by under the bridge. He zoomed his mounted camera to a ridiculously high zoom into the HUD as he prepared himself.

Positioning his aircraft properly, Roman proceeded to hit the afterburners as he continued on with the lyrics of his ever irritating singing voice, ignoring the low altitude warning the vocal warning system was giving him. The Su-35 flew under the bridge at near supersonic speed, kicking up dust, water and dirt all over the General's jeep, causing him to stop his car out of fear.

The Super Flanker pilot pitched up hard on the stick, which narrowly thwarted him from a collision with a hill right in front of the bridge. He proceeded to do a climbing barrel roll while punching out flares to show off his acrobatic feat to any people on the ground.

.

Roman turned down his afterburners as he finally caught pace with the IL-76 tanker refuelling Lena's Super Flanker. He hastily got under one of his wings as he boasted out his achievement out onto the radio channel.

"Well, what do you think?" Roman asked the short tempered tanker pilot. "Pretty impressive, huh?"

"Yeah… not bad, a little classic," the tanker replied with a strangely calm voice. Roman could only try to hide his surprise under his oxygen mask and tinted visor.

"Alright, now look at me Roman," the tanker said in a devious tone. "I'm gonna do something in my oversized boiler that you can't do in your slender pop can."

"Alright, be my guest," Roman said as he straightened up his oxygen hose from his mask.

He could only hear a simple fizzing and popping before a loud gulp was heard. He simply cocked an eyebrow at the sound.

"So?" The tanker questioned. "Did you see it?"

"See what?" Roman repeated. "I didn't see anything!"

"I just…" the tanker started, taking another gulp. "I just opened myself a bottle of vodka."

Lena simply applied the airbrakes as her jet broke away from the tanker nozzle. The tanker pulled skywards in response to the parasite hosed up onto it leaving its parent.

"Well, I'm done here," The tanker snorted as he took another chug out of his bottle. "Bye bye suckers, and cheers!"

"Alright, bye tanker," Lena said as she rejoined formation with her flight leader.

"Roman?" the female pilot asked.

"Yes, my dear?" the flight leader asked.

"Remind me to bring the vodka next time…" Lena said in a low voice, mainly due to the fact that her status of a jock fighter pilot was defeated by a tanker boom operator.

"Yeah, yeah..." Roman muttered as he returned to the CAP waypoints.

"That tanker pilot is a real shithead," Lena declared as she pushed into the afterburners in order to keep pace with her leader.

"Ya ever saw him with a chick before, sweetie?" Roman asked his wingman as he looked out the side of his cockpit.

"Nope."

"Then he's gay," Roman snickered. His wingman chuckled at the simple joke. However, she quickly remembered something and asked openly on their channel.

"Tanker, you still on this channel?" Lena asked.

"Yep..." The tanker replied.

"OK."

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**How is the story so far? Please review!**


	2. Agressor defender

**Another chapter from yours truly… This chapter currently violates my promise of not updating my other stories. Anyways, cheers!**

_4 years later…_

_After the initial events of two Superflanker pilots flying at dangerously low altitudes and giving the regional Russian commander a near fatal heart attack, the pilots were disciplined and finally reassigned to frontline multimode fighters. They are now on their first training flight… what could possibly go wrong?_

All is peaceful in an early morning at the coastal city of Taganrog, with a peaceful morning sunrise with the streets being eerily quiet. The people of the peaceful city is preparing for their day's task in orderly fashion… or at least before the Air Force was training their two troublesome pilots.

Two Su-35 pilots were flying in a close formation, diving lower and lower before only barely touching the rooftops of the tallest structures in the city. Approaching the airbase within the city, they started to dive before kicking in the afterburners, accelerating to near mach speed before levelling out their flight at a pair of parked MiG-35 Super Fulcrums.

The pilots, Major Roman and his wingman, First Lieutenant Lena, were still approaching the two stationed aircraft were knocked over by the sheer windblast, throwing them to the concrete pavement and sending their unstrapped helmets rolling all over the pavement like bowling balls. Roman, however, simply picked himself up off the ground and started laughing.

"Woooooooooah! What the fuck! MO-THE-R-FU-CK-ER!" the Major chuckled as he found his helmet near the side of the taxiway. "Oh haha, that was fucking beautiful!"

Locating the other helmet and tossing it over to his female wingman, he simply continued his colourful commentary out loud. "See Lena, even after all of these years, our fellow pilots still attempt to re-do our famous stunt years ago at Anapa- and we'll never get tired of it!"

"Sometimes I just think to myself-" Roman continued, before his potential lover cut him off.

"Roman!" Lena gritted.

The lead pilot simply muted himself to hear Lena's response.

"You piss me off," she stated straightly. "You've been pissing me off for ages… but now you're really pissing me off."

"You yell and yell… it pisses me off the moment hearing you yell when we get up in the morning…" Lena continued as the two closed in for their aircraft. "and you… and you… and you yell… and you never shut up!"

"Well," Roman replied calmly, giving her a smile into her unhappy eyes. "You're in a great mood this morning, so I think we're going to have a great day."

"But you do realise that because of you," she shot back, looking right into his green eyes. "We're forced to fly in these half quality shitwrecks as test pilots!"

"Hehehe…" Roman mumbled as he got his helmet on.

"Roman, shut up!" Lena quipped.

There was a brief moment of silence between the two of them before Roman decided to piece out his thoughts again.

"Stop whining Lena," Roman reassured as he walked up to the jet and rested his hand on the airframe. "These jets ain't that bad!"

Placing a hand on a Kh-29T missile on the innermost wing pylon, he proceeded to continue his commentary.

"For starters, they're elegant and well armed," he finished, and proceeded to climb into the open cockpit, where he got his camera out to start recording.

"Easy to handle," the Major said, letting his hands sink onto the ergonomical center stick.

"Ejectable fabric bucket seats," he mumbled on as he strapped into the ejection seat.

"High precision and crystal clear LCD screens," he said, turning on the power and lighting up all three MFD screens.

"Manoeuvrable… heavyweight landing gear and smokeless RD-33 engines," the aviator finished off, just as a commercial screen took over and an announcer proceeded to fill in.

"This advertisement is brought to you in part by Mikoyan aircraft productions. The smokeless thrust vectored power plant does not guarantee cleaner emissions, but will reduce visibility significantly. Missiles, bombs and other munitions sold separately. Contains small parts not suitable for children under the age of 36 months."

The screen then proceeded to get cluttered up with contact information ranging from country phone numbers to Roman's e-mail address. The price tag attached to the screen was 30 million USD, tax included. Various offers were also thrown across to give users some more motivation in purchasing, ranging from free shipping to the offer of six R-77 radar guided missiles if they order before December 31st. A free test run was even offered if they could manage to meet Roman himself.

Returning to the previous scene, Roman is now seen with a suitcase full of cash while still managing his cockpit. He divided out half of the money and proceeded to shove them into his various pockets in his flight suit and under his ejection seats before tossing the other half over to Lena.

"See sweetie, you should've taken up advertising a long time ago," Roman chuckled. Lena was about to say something but was instead cut off by the voice of the tower control.

"Defender one-one, Defender one-two, you are cleared for takeoff at runway two seven," the voice of the air traffic controller flowed through their ears.

"Ok, roger that sir," Lena replied, hurriedly shoving the money passed over from her friend into wherever she could fit them.

"And hurry up, the instructor is waiting for you up there!" the controller topped off.

"Alright!" Roman said enthusiastically as he strapped on his oxygen mask. "Let's show that sucker what we're made out of!"

Turning on the aircraft lights, Roman proceeded to do routine check, consisting of rudder, ailerons, and avionics. However, he couldn't help but take out his iPod and play a soundtrack, or else known as Highway to hell.

By now, the engines of the Super Fulcrum has already spun up to high gear, being indicated on the digital tachometer on the multifunction displays. The engines purred gently with the melody of the song being emitted from Roman's iPod as it increased its power output to proceed with taxiing down to the runway. Roman closed the framed canopy and proceeded to sing along with the lyrics.

"Livin' easy, lovin' free,"

"Season ticket, on a one - way ride,"

"Askin' nothin', leave me be,"

"Takin' everything in my stride,"

"Don't need reason, don't need rhyme,"

"Ain't nothing I'd rather do,"

"Goin' down, party time,"

"My friends are gonna be there too,"  
"I'm on the highway to hell,"

"On the highway to hell,"

"Highway to hell-"

Before the easy going Major could continue on with the lyrics or taxiing, their flight instructor, Lieutenant General Vladimir Markov, cut into their channel like hot knife through butter from his PAK-FA cruising at 35,000 feet above them. He was not all pleased with the couple.

"For Christ sake! Do you think that this is a frat party or what?!" Markov spat at Roman through his radio. "Turn that raucous music off!"

Sure enough, Roman complied, and the Major turned off his iPod and muted the volume as his superior commander demands. However, Markov was still not impressed, much less satisfied.

"You two lovebirds should've been up here one minute, thirty four seconds and fifty nine milliseconds ago!" Markov screamed into their ears, whilst checking his wristwatch at the same time. "So get your filthy baby buttholes up here! Have I made myself clear, you worthless Privates?!"

"Yes sir, right away sir!" Lena responded quickly, with a slight taste of fear in her normally soft voice as she taxied down the taxi way.

"Alright," Markov replied, now in a slightly calmer tone. "Now let's get over the basics of your first mission: Ground attack 201."

"Uhh, why don't you just call it Ground attack 101?" Roman commented, obviously against the will of their flight instructor.

"It's called that because I think it sounds better!" the instructor gritted, obviously becoming more agitated as he continued his briefing. "Follow my finger! Now, after a standard takeoff from the runway, proceed hastily towards shooting range F-29..."

"…All while maintaining attack formation Delta," Markov continued. "Once you're there, use your radar optics to light up and target those scrapped T-72BA tanks."

"Once in range, engage those bastards and pop off their gun turrets with your Kh-29 missiles and S-8 self propelled bombs if necessary."

"I believe those are called rockets, sir," Lena commented as politely as possible at the outlandish remark.

"SHUT UP!" the short tempered instructor boiled off. "Once completed, we'll use our Gsh-301 cannons and commence a synchronized but simple gun run on some soft targets."

"ON MY MARK!" Markov chirped, almost making Lena eject her ejection seat without even pulling the latches. "We'll then drop our entire load of ZAB-500 Fuel air bombs on the abandoned oil refinery plant for a major clusterfuck like the fucking fireworks on the fucking twenty eighth of May! HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR, YOU WORTHLESS MAGGOTS?!"

"Yes sir, perfectly clear, we'll get it done," Lena quickly responded, with her ears ringing from her instructor's screaming and the sound of recorded fireworks he broadcasted over.

"What the hell is ZAB-500?" Roman questioned himself before asking the instructor himself. "Sir, I can't find the ZAB-500 factory on my map!"

"Mellow out!" Markov spat back as he turned his plane into a right turn. "Get your lily-white asses up here! Over and out!"

Properly positioned on the runway, the tower gave Lena permission to take off as her leader was still getting into position.

"Defender one-two, you are clear for takeoff," the tower informed calmly.

"Yes sir, taking off," Lena replied, pushing the plane into full power as she took down the runway.

Roman, however, grinded his jet to a halt at the runway and started to fumble around something that he still did not get clear yet.

"Alright, let me see," he grumbled. "Slowly give it some gas, and let go of the brakes."

Roman pressed something which only gave a slight clicking sound when turned. "Wrong switch…"

Flipping another switch, he only managed to jettison a single Kh-29 missile from the launch racks, causing it to hit the pavement with a thud. "Wrong switch again…"

"Oh right, there it is," Roman said to himself dumbfounded. "Letting go of the brakes now."

Unknown to Roman while he was taking off, the following Kh-29 missile was one of a kind- without control from the aircraft itself, it managed to turn its laser designator on, where it started to display a thermal imaging screen textured similarly to an arcade game.

Although prompting itself to insert a coin, thee systems simply overrode this process and skipped to the 'one player' or 'two player' part, where 'one player' was automatically selected. As it observed Lena's and Roman's aircraft lift off, the game screen was replaced with a targeting screen, similarly designed to a legitimate designator before abruptly igniting its rocket motor and taking off along with the two aircraft.

.

Markov was proud of his job controlling the two wiley pilots, and soon reported to the local Russian commander that almost passed away due to them about his duty being successful.

"General, I've got the two hotheads firmly under my belt," the instructor boasted to the commander.

"Good job, over," the commander replied from his UAZ, where a single soldier was driving it for him.

The UAZ drove for a few more kilometres before it finally pulled to a stop at a farmhouse. The General disembarked from the vehicle to observe his ranch while the driver stayed behind.

"Alright, this is your ranch General, I'll be in the car if you need me," the soldier reported as the General entered his ranch.

.

The Kh-29 missile that took off earlier from the airfield was going on a rampage in the streets of Taganrog, where it was flying barely above the ground level. While normal missiles of the type would only have enough fuel to burn for a few seconds, the following missile had enough for nearly thirty minutes for some reason. Luckily the streets were rather empty, so everyone was safe even though the missile ran a red light. It proceeded to navigate its way through several alleyways of buildings, taking it as a SuperMario game rather than proper navigation. It eventually flew past the dock cranes and under a bridge, where it took off into one of the clouds before it went back down again, targeting itself to impact a fuel truck stationed at a secondary airstrip.

The explosion had some interesting effects, as the fuel truck exploding was enough to blow up the Su-27 parked right next to it, triggering off a chain reaction of the next 15 stationed jets exploding into metal hulks before finally stopping at the A-50 AWACS aircraft. A single piece of scrap metal flew randomly and hit an S-300 SAM launcher, launching a single missile randomly into the void of the sky.

The missile, however, was searching for its nearest target instead of self-destructing. As a result, it somehow locked onto Markov's PAK-FA that was just happening to fly overhead, detonating in the rear end of the aircraft, shredding its control surfaces and destroying the avionics with its shrapnel.

"Holy fuck!" Markov cried out in sensation of the impact. Looking over, he could see fluids leaking from the airframe and his jet engines trailing thick black smoke. "What is this mess?!"

The flight instructor attempted to move the stick, but it was to no avail, as the control surfaces were shredded. All of the MFD displays turned off and warning lights shot on, with the distinctive vocal warning tone chirping off in his headset.

"Holy fucking cow!" Markov cursed as he jettisoned a single fuel air bomb, in an attempt to regain control.

The bomb, however, was dropped right over the General's ranch, and exploded into the cow farm of his ranch, sending his cows and other animals flying all over the place. One of the cows even landed inside the General's rooms while he was still inside. Sure enough, it was enough to set him off.

"ACK!" the General wailed, clutching his chest before he fell over.

.

"Roman, if you make a 90 degree turn while going right, you will be going North!" Lena said frustrated. "I've told you that like a hundred times!"

"Hold on, we went North, turned left, then South and turned right, and then straight ahead," Roman recalculated. "According to my calculations, we're in sector F-29!"

"F-29 my ass!" Lena snapped. "You sucked at navigating anyways, so mister 'hand-me-the-map-please.' I bet you can't even tell your left to right, like that time we went to KFC, it took you 3 hours to find the food menu, not to mention that our jets come with GPS navig-"

"BORING!" Roman snapped as he muted his radio channel. Looking upwards, however, he saw his old friend, the IL-76 tanker.

"Holy shit, it's the tanker!" Roman squealed, excited as he pulled his plane up to his wingside. "Hey, look, check out my classy new plane!"

Despite hearing no reply from the pilot, Roman decided to continue his boasting anyways.

"It's the bread and butter of the Air Force's Multirole fighters! King of ground attacks, while remaining a dangerous air foe! Also a top of the line flying chick magnet!"

However, the only sounds he could hear plausibly was screaming an moaning sounds coming from the back of the cockpit, presumably from a woman. Broken glass and objects falling could also be heard, but Roman just shrugged it off.

"Hey, get this: 9 weapons hard points, telescopic fabric bucket seats, heavyweight land gear, along with all of these switches and dials everywhere!" Roman proudly boasted to the tanker, who was obviously having a better time screwing the chick of his dreams. "That shut you up didn't it?! You would be jealous wouldn't you?"

"Come on Roman, let him be," Lena filled in, obviously annoyed. "Can't you see he doesn't give a shit? Let's get outta here."

"Acting like a big-shit, drinking Vodka in that boiler wreck," Roman laughed as Lena turned away from the tanker. "But actually he's jealous! What a loser!"

"You cyclist." Lena commented at Roman.

"Whatever, I too can open a drink if I wanted to," Roman said as he tugged out a bottle from his vest pouch, whilst inverting his plane above Lena's in the process. "I can even do it upside down!"

"Roman, don't do it, that won't be good!" Lena quipped.

.

"Why?! WHY?!" Markov sobbed. "WHY does this prototype lack redundant ejection seats? I've been stuck up here, being forced to eat my shit for five days…"

"Unknown aircraft, you are entering Polish airspace!" a voice came into Markov's radio. "State your intentions or you will be shot down!"

*Film feed gets cut off.*

**Um… should I continue? Please review!**


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